Inside the Wellness Boom: Separating Scams From Science
4/13/20261 hr 2 min
On the heels of the weekend premiere of her new CNN series, “Kara Swisher Wants To Live Forever,” Kara brings together a panel of experts to talk more about longevity, anti-aging, and the money that’s pouring into the wellness industry. Katie Couric is a journalist. She’s also been a longtime advocate for early cancer screenings since her first husband died of colon cancer and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Amy Larocca is an award-winning journalist and author of the book, “How To Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure At A Time.” And Kara’s brother, Dr. Jeffrey Swisher, is chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. He recently caught a so-called “widowmaker” heart attack before it happened, and his wife has also been diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. Kara, Katie, Amy and Jeff talk about the explosion of health misinformation online and why people have become so skeptical of medical experts. They also talk about the promising health care science on the horizon and the real secrets to living a long, happy life. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsKatie Couric· Guest0:00
What about my fish oil?
Jeffrey Swisher· Guest0:01
[laughs] Yeah, your fish oil is good. [laughs] Yeah, except you get fish breath with fish oil.
Katie Couric· Guest0:06
[laughs] You get... You burp a lot.
Jeffrey Swisher· Guest0:08
You do.
Speaker 20:09
[laughs] [upbeat music] It's on.
Kara Swisher· Host0:09
Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. As you might know, my new CNN series debuted this past weekend. It's called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. It's a big look at longevity, anti-aging, and the huge industries popping up around all these topics. I wanted to cut through all the scams and hype and talk about the real science around how to live longer, healthier lives. I do not wanna live forever, by the way. Longevity is also the subject of today's show, and I've got three experts with me to talk about it. Katie Couric is a journalist. She's also been a longtime advocate for people to get cancer screenings after her first husband died of colon cancer and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Amy Larocca is an award-winning journalist and author of the book How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time. She is in the series, and so is my brother, Dr. Jeffrey Swisher. He's the chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. And he recently caught, before it happened, the possibility of a so-called widow-maker heart attack. His wife has also been diagnosed with stage three colon cancer